Despite nine months that included historic congestion, rumblings of diversions and the lack of a West Coast port contract, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach nabbed a bigger piece of the West Coast volume pie through the first three quarters of 2014.

Eleven container ships were anchored off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Sunday, the most waiting at one time in San Pedro Bay in two years, as gridlock persisted at the largest container gateway in the Americas.

Kansas City Southern Railway is talking with ocean carriers and beneficial cargo owners about diverting shipments bound for the U.S. Gulf region away from congestion-wracked Los Angeles-Long Beach to the Port of Lazaro Cardenas in south-central Mexico.

APM Terminals expects its new deep-water terminal at the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas to become operational in the first half of 2016, allowing it to handle larger container ships and boosting its capacity, according to a recent update from the terminal operator.

Ports in the Americas showed increased productivity in 2013 versus the previous year, which is good news for shippers as vessels worldwide grow increasingly larger. Our slideshow reviews the Top 6 ports in the western hemisphere in 2013.

The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex the past three years has increased its share of the container trade on the Pacific Coast of North America, indicating that the big ships carriers are deploying in the trans-Pacific are diverting cargo away from other ports on the coast.

In a down market, U.S. ports outpaced their Canadian and Mexican rivals during the first quarter, with solid growth at Los Angeles offsetting a drop at neighboring Long Beach and lifting the Southern California port complex further above its competition.